Ruin Hive
Enormous, petrified and equally capable of traversing the Warp and deep space, the Ruin Hive, as it has been designated by the Inquisition, is an enormous, xenotech Dyson Sphere, an alien megastructure potentially billions of years old. Believed to have been built by Krylithids, the Ruin Hive's original purpose is long lost, as millenia of drifting in and out of realspace and the Warp have distorted the megastructure into a space hulk, infested with hungry aliens and seething with Daemonic energy. History It is unknown exactly when the Ruin Hive was built, though tests and dating run by very brave or foolish explorers is inconclusive and seems to give contradictory results. Unlike most Space Hulks, the Ruin Hive is a megastructure surrounding a star, also suffused by the power of the Warp, and because of its enormous size, it is stationary except when it jumps into the Immaterium. From a distance, the immense object appears to be a planetoid sized structure, its surface made of countless ships that have merged with the bulk of the station. Discovered officially in M39, by Rogue Trader Coronus Marr, to date no expedition party that has entered the Hulk has come out without suffering casualties. Time and space distort as one gets closer to the Daemon Star at the heart of the Space Hulk, and dozens of unfriendly factions war over territory, lore, and precious Krylithid treasure. Structure As the name implies, the Ruin Hive is a Dyson Sphere built around a Daemonically infused White Dwarf star. An unknown xenotech mechanism draws in the energy of the star, ensuring that the structure will remain powered indefinitely. The innermost structure, protected by kilometers of unknown, ultradense alien chitin-metal, is theorized to be a Krylithid Hive, abandoned though potentially containing the cryogenically frozen remains of the depraved aliens. The outer shells to the surface contain an uncountable number of tunnels, labyrinths and mazes, not helped by the strange spatial and temporal distortions that move through the facility, changing passages and creating impossible spaces. The closer one gets to the core and the Daemon Star, the less sense the structure makes, and the more space and time fluctuate. It is very possible for adventurers to encounter themselves from different timestreams or the past and future, or to find impossibly immense caverns contained inside barely one-man cruisers. Littered across the Space Hulk is the detritus of ships of thousands of civilizations, fused into one by the caress of the Warp. While many ships are recognizably Imperial, Eldar, Tau, Tyranid and Necron, there are many more from unknown species, ships that seem to defy all understood science about ship design and physics. Several hundred Krylithid battlecruisers are merged into the structure near the core, presumably the Ruin Hive's former escorts, and they are the most heavily contested areas, as they are the likeliest to contain Krylithid artefacts. Factions Feel free to add your own! The Forge Profanitum Originally a small cell of Dark Mechanicus and Obliterators that had allied together for mutual gain and study of xenotechnology, the Forge Profanitum are perhaps the most stable of the various murderous factions within the Ruin Hive. The Forge Profanitum is a hideous fusion of a Mechanicus vessel with flesh, bone, alien biomatter and plenty of other unmentionable materials. The Dark Mechanicus there, however, are interested only in their research into the Krylithids and will offer safe passage to any non-Imperial visitor that passes through. Their ship has been re purposed into a bizarre fabricator, that is capable of building almost any device imaginable, for a price, of course. The Scream Eaters Originally a detachment from the Sons of Malice, the Scream Eaters embarked on a holy pilgrimage to the Ruin Hive, believing it to be the greatest temple to the Chaos God Malice currently existent. The Scream Eaters, like any worshipper of Malice, kill virtually anyone who cross their path, often eating them alive and offering their fear to their patron. When the festivities are over, they enter a short period of dormancy where they can be reasonably negotiated with, before the hunting madness overtakes them once more. The Serpents A mysterious clique of serpentine xenos that appear to have adapted to the Ruin Hive's ecology. Four armed, with unsettlingly insectoid faces, these 'serpents,' as they are nicknamed, seem to be masters of both Warp-power and fleshcrafting. Their ship appears to be millenia old, and while most of their language is untranslateable to the human tongue, one of the many re-occurring motifs seem to be sigils of Slaanesh. Despite being fervent worshipers of the Pleasure God, they seem to despise all Astartes, especially members of the Emperor's Children, who they subject to incredibly unpleasant and agonizing fates. Though there are rumors that link these aliens to another serpentine species encountered millenia ago by the Third Legion, those xenos were thought to have been exterminated, which would make the serpents tens of thousands of years old, and incredibly deadly champions of Slaanesh. The Warden Initially believed to be some kind of Greater Daemon haunting the inner sanctum of the Krylithid hive, the Warden is now known to be an ancient, utterly insane, Chaos-corrupted Krylithid artificial intelligence. The Warden is incapable of being communicated with on any meaningful level, its own alien mind being far too deranged to understand. Its motives are crystal clear however, and any non-Krylithid life-form that draws close to the inner sanctum is set upon by advanced, biotech constructs of alien meat and steel that seek to stop outsiders from learning of the secrets of the strange xenos. Quotes Feel free to add your own! Category:Xenos Technology Category:Space Stations Category:Places Category:Chaos Category:Space Hulks